DIVIDEND INVESTING 2011

What are the songs and art pieces, drawings and writings
to encourage - designers and engineers of esp interiors of public transportation?
* I need stronger word then encourage here. English is sometimes too polite - as a language. It really doesn't kick in someone's core - and get it up. Revivify? etc. Well there should be better words and expressions than it...

No one ever - I hope and I believe - it has to look so tired or cold, so unattractive and dark, or prone to be looking bad and etc. (but then I notice that whole culture of public transport system can be reviewed - and in some ways we find it's all stuck in very problematic heritage - problems - and we won't know how to fix it.

*but there are successful cases in USA - even in USA
**and probably across the world we might find the cases of revitalization, redoing, successful redoing attempts etc. (where that would be?)

Positives?
*SF's those train stuff. Cable cars. Or Munis running with Cable Car designs. Muni's trains etc itself isn't badly designed at all.
**So that generates the question of why some trains and lines seem to have stuck with bad designs (and morales?) forever? Or did they have gorgeous, great designs in the first place and something happened and that changed the whole thing into - some of the worst stuff we have today?

Interior design. Passenger space design.

There are some money went in and some or even in many cities - I see buses etc getting really great and etc. Hmm. *If we get a listing of them on the web with visual presentation and passionate talk? by designers and companies got involved in the design and making of them - that'd be a great resource - for America and also for people (municipalities, local governments and central governments).

Solace is that in the morning and earlier part of the day, even the worst trains insides often kind of look okay and nice. Somehow, esp when it's sunny. (when it's rainy or snowy, I don't know, somehow, honestly. The great power is sunlight - much of the time - even to the eyes of human beings who live in mega-cities.)

Shapes of things there. Color choices. How information fits in. How advertisement etc fits in.

All doesn't have to be stuck with that kind of looking at all.

*memory of LA buses, Seattle buses.
*There often less white people. In some lines of LA buses, never was a white person. When I asked some of them, some sure did answer they have never used buses.

***Green and Eco, etc also means revitalization or revivifying the public transportation systems (although there are certain some cases when just putting more effort and focus into public transportation doesn't seem smart, ie, there are cases where more comprehensive redesigning - such as whole town scale, city scale might be necessary. but today, modern advanced societies are short on cash - money - and even they are short on credit - not that they are short on labor though...there are tons of mobilizable brains - intellectual forces and physical labor forces. It's like we are limiting what we can be doing now with some stupid nozzles - and limiting where the icing of the cake can go - it's only allowed to be positioned to very limited, and always same spots....)

So if we can have portals - basically very flatly listing and comparing and picking out best smart practices and efforts - endeavorers -

**Web and network, or PCs etc were supposed to be able to do this

"Best of this". Journalism was also supposed to be able to do this and academics, science and experts were supposed to be able to do this. Always picking up best, most smart and well coordinated, best invested stuff (about one specific domain or subject area).

Best of education, best of revitalizing public transportation system, best of urban regeneration, best of transitional green economic models and practical management, coordination etc.

But we still haven't got there yet. Although there are - some private interest thing there - but even discounting that what we've achieved to build really good information system architecture and tools on the web and personal terminals are fairly - very disappointingly - limited - and suffocating.

Getting us from Newark to WTC - $ 1.50 and in 20 minutes is pretty decent thing.
[*but then that pulls up the issues of how the ticket giving machine is designed and located - and how it is wasteful to have that -

manning it with trained people and giving them wages would be probably in the end more meaningful?

or those are low functions - so it's more ethically right to give it to machines and humans should do more requiring stuff.

I don't know how that automation came in. There must be some thought and argument behind it - like how Japan came up with all those (privately developed) highly efficient ticket system - for trains - and why buses still got such sucking system -

and why England's system was so - duh,

etc. Developing those machine - was done by who? (each remarkable ca

Lt. Gen. Benjamin Freakley, the commanding general of U.S. Army Accessions Command, discusses the Army's motorsports sponsorships with the media on Friday at Daytona International Speedway. U.S. Army photo by Tim Hipps, FMWRC Public Affairs

House, Freakley reaffirm Army's sponsorship of motorsports teams

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla., Feb. 18, 2011 -- On the day the House voted 281-148 to allow the U.S Army to continue its NASCAR sponsorship, Lt. Gen. Benjamin Freakley explained the importance of the relationship to the media at Daytona International Speedway.

Rep. Betty McCollum (D) of Minnesota introduced a measure to ban Department of Defense spending on NASCAR sponsorship as an amendment to the House's spending bill. On Feb. 18, the House rejected the proposed sponsorship ban.

Freakley, the commanding general of U.S. Army Accessions Command, said the Army spends $7.4 million per year on NASCAR and $3.9 million on NHRA sponsorships. Another $8 million goes toward activation of the motorsports sponsorships - all the moving parts that complete the Army experience for fans attending race tracks across America.

"We have brought those dollars down over the years," said Freakley, whose Recruiting Command sponsors driver Ryan Newman in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series and Top Fuel dragster driver Tony "The Sarge" Schumacher on the National Hot Rod Association circuit. "In the three and a half years I've been engaged, we have shaped the races that we're in and we have shaped our sponsorship because it's the American peoples' money.

"We recognize that. But regardless, I have to invest in awareness," Freakley explained.

Freakley said studies indicate that NASCAR provides the best return for the Army's investment in the marketing of military recruiters' desired audience.

During the past three years, the Army got out of the business of sponsoring arena football, motorcycle racing and rodeo bull riding, but stuck with NASCAR, the NHRA and the U.S. Army All-American Bowl, the premier all-star football game for high school seniors.

"We run the Army's marketing and advertising programs to make Americans aware of the American Army opportunities, options, education and what young people can find if they come to serve us in the Army," Freakley said. "In September 2000, we were directed by the Congress to direct a pilot through NASCAR from all services to connect with the American people through this venue, this great motorsport called NASCAR. We did the pilot and we liked it so much in the Army that we kept it going.

"In my mind, after three and a half years of working with NASCAR, we have a treasured relationship with NASCAR because it gives us a great venue to tell our story as Soldiers where people are receptive - as we call it, a passion point."

In 2010, the Army generated more than 150,000 recruiting leads from its sports-marketing program. One third of those - 46,000 - came from NASCAR and the motorsports programs, Freakley said.

"It's not a day at the track," he explained. "Many people think, 'Why are we spending this amount of money for a day at the track?' This is a yearlong engagement by the Army where we go into high schools, go onto the tracks and use this venue to talk about this discourse about serving in the Army.

"We do know that young people and their parents have this passion point about NASCAR. We do know that they come to the races. We do know, as you will observe this weekend, they come to the Strength in Action Zone. They talk to our Soldiers. They talk to our sergeants. We have a common dialogue on no threatening ground.

"You're not standing in a recruiting station on the brink of a decision. You're at a NASCAR event to have a discussion and a deep dialogue," Freakley added. "We get a much richer dialogue on this common ground than if we were not here."

Another 25,000 students and teachers attended the Army's education outreach programs that stress the importance of graduating from high school, Freakley said.

"It's not about Army recruiting, it's about awareness and staying on track so you can qualify into the Army," Freakley said. "Only one of four of our youth, 17-to-24-year olds, can qualify to join the military because of education, obesity or other health issues, and conduct. And those same young people probably can't work on a race car because they're not physically fit to work on a race car."

The outreach programs provide youngsters with different perspectives of Army life beyond the battlefields. In some instances, the Army's affiliation with NASCAR actually helps give recruiters access to students.

"Off and on in the American experience, we've had recruiters and ROTC and West Point outreach fully allowed into high schools, and other times we've seen the doors closed," Freakley said. "And sometimes NASCAR opens those doors."

Freakley said the relatio